Ordinary Paradise

When Laura Furman was only thirteen her mother died from ovarian cancer, leaving Laura adrift in a damaged family where mourning was not allowed and remembrance itself was discouraged.This moving and powerful memoir chronicles the difficulties that result, as the author struggles to grow up untended and, in many ways, unnoticed.In it, Furman first recaptures for us the texture of her happy childhood. She recalls the chilling numbness that enveloped her during her mother's illness and death, and describes in heartbreaking detail the aftermath -- her unheard cries for help; her eventual self-propelled recovery; and the poignant, thought-provoking decision she made as an adult to avoid the disease that had taken her mother's life.Ordinary Paradise expresses in exceptionally beautiful prose the subtle interrelationships that make growing up so difficult in a family where surface appearances matter more than reality. It is an unforgettable portrait of the author's mother -- her family's emotional center -- and of the author's father, a complex, well-meaning man whose limitations caused unintentional harm.Even more, it is a vivid confirmation of a mother's value to her family and of the healing that motherhood itself can provide to a wounded heart.Ultimately, the story is one of triumph as its author strives to capture the ordinary paradise of family life that so many of us take for granted.